FREE FALLING, AS IF IN A DREAM The Story of a Crime

This audiobook, the third in a series, revisits Sweden's most famous cold case, the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. Persson's characters are well drawn, and the Palme murder is a great hook, but nailing the known facts of the case is a little like listening to a phone book. Where exactly were witnesses one through five, on which Stockholm street corner, at exactly what minute? These details are hard to follow off the page, as are myriad place and proper names, which sound much alike in Erik Davies's richly accented delivery. Davies's portrayal of the coarse and deeply wrong-headed policeman Backstrom is very funny, and there are other pleasures, but, altogether, Persson's work does not seem to translate as well to audio as other Scandinavian thrillers. B.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2014]